Tag Archives: japan

Only in Japan: Manmade Meteor Shower

After previous missteps, Tokyo needs their hosting of the Olympics to not only go smoothly, but to wow visitors in order to regain some face. If Japan-based research company Star-ALE has their way, they’ll be the ones to provide the opening ceremony show-stopper that will get things off to a fantastical start—by way of a manmade meteor shower lighting up the night sky.

Source: Fireworks of the Future? Startup Looks to Launch Manmade Meteor Shower for Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony – Core77

It’s about $8M in pellets, which for Olympic style fireworks isn’t crazy, plus launch costs. But the idea that a manmade meteor shower might actually be part of big events in the future is pretty crazy.

Sobering Comment on Japan Quake

I think the thing we’ve definitely learned about this is having one of the top 10 earthquakes ever recorded is a really bad thing.

-Chad Orzel

As we discussed many things post the Mid Hudson Astronomy meeting on Tuesday, the earthquake came up, especially some conversations around the nuclear reactors, as our speaker, Chad Orzel, is a physicist. Fortunately generosity seems to be overpowering blame at the moment in helping Japan recover from this act of nature.

Our local public radio station is doing a one day fund drive for relief to Japan. They did this with Katrina and Haiti, and it has become a fabric of WAMC, which I’m proud to support.